Valve has pulled all of Digital Homicide's games from Steam after it sues 100 users for harsh reviews

If you ran a game studio and faced a slew of very negative (and sometimes threatening) user reviews, what would you do? Valve has pulled all of Digital Homicide's games from Steam in response to a developer subpoena forcing Valve to reveal the identities of 100 users who posted harsh reviews, paving the way for an $18 million personal injury lawsuit.The lawsuit, filed by Indie developer Digital Homicide's James Romine, comes alongside a separate claim against YouTuber Jim Sterling, whose videos have frequently roasted the developer's games. Some of Sterling's fans have supposedly harassed both James and his brother Robert through the mail.

It claims that it's only suing after Valve did little to moderate user game reviews, at least some of which included death threats. The company deserves a "safe environment" to do business.

However, it's not clear that all of the reviews were so hostile, and Digital Homicide doesn't exactly have a squeaky-clean reputation. It has been waging a war against Sterling for many months, including doxxing and questionable YouTube takedown requests, in response to videos that do little more than highlight the studio's shady practices. On top of producing shovelware (it posted 18 games on Steam Greenlight in one year), Digital Homicide has allegedly masqueraded as different developers and offered game keys in exchange for rigging Greenlight votes. The company may have already been on the road to a Steam ban -- the subpoena could just be the last straw.